enjoy today’s vibes ✨
Today felt lighter. I woke up ready to run – literally – and knocked out 4.2 miles at 6:00 a.m. I was chatting on the phone with a friend the whole time. Still managed a solid pace and a solid sweat. Running has always been such a somatic release for me. My body usually processes before my brain does. Sometimes that’s exactly what I need, letting my body metabolize what my brain may not be ready to yet.
This is one of my favorite forms of therapy. I do it daily, whether it be running, dancing to music, stretching on my mat, or even just walking outside. You’ll usually catch me with music in my ears dancing like nobody’s watching! Movement pulls me back into my body, kind of like I can shake things lose before the harden into tension. Therapy isn’t always just talking things out. For me- it’s noticing what my body is holding & finding ways to let it go.
I’ve been reading more about this lately. It’s wild how much research lines up with what I feel when I move. Trauma and stress really do show up physically, phew my shoulders and posture could show you this is true.
Tight shoulders, restless sleep, even that constant hum of tension. Studies have found that body-based approaches, like somatic experiencing, actually lower PTSD and anxiety symptoms.
It makes sense to me. Sometimes a good run or cycle ride does more for me than talking could in that moment.
And don’t get me wrong, talk therapy has saved me plenty of times! I have a therapist I see as often as I can. When I have to reschedule (like I had to today) I want to cry. Lol. I hate it, I love my therapist and I love the work we do together.
But there’s something different about letting my body take the lead. Sweating it out, breathing hard, feeling my muscles work. It’s like my body gets to clear the static so my brain can catch up later. With her. **Thanks Rene.
Both forms of therapy have been crucial to my healing journey.
One clinical trial looked at somatic experiencing and found real decreases in PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms. Compared to people who didn’t do it. That felt validating….at least it’s science catching up to what a sweaty morning can do for your nervous system.
Harvard said it simply, “emotions don’t just live in your head, they show up in your body.” Somatic therapy finds ways to pay attention, to those sensations and finding ways to release them. Cue in Breathwork, grounding, meditation, and pendulation. – The body doesn’t lie, it just speaking it’s own languge.
The hard part is, if trauma sits in the body too long it can get mislabeled. A 2023 paper in Annals Clinical Neurophysiology showed that what used to be brushed over as “somatic symptom disorder” is really just the brain amplifying normal feelings and sensations into pain and discomfort.
When you look at people who have lived through IPV (intimate partner violence), myself included. Research in Brain Sciences found that CPTSD and BPD often get tangled up. Same symptoms on the surface.
The nervous system stuck in survival mode.
What My Bones Know
I read that complex trauma can change the way the brain reads the body… that tracks. When I first started dating my boyfriend, we would go out to dinner … it could have been anywhere. Within minutes I’d be in the bathroom throwing up. My body wasn’t reacting to the food it was reacting to a situation. Even though I was safe, my nervous system didn’t believe me yet. That’s the thing about trauma, your body holds the score, long after your mind tries to move on. That was only one symptom I lived with for years. My body learned to react to safety like it was a threat. Because it had been for me in the past.
Anyways, all of this stems from a book I found yesterday at Barnes & Noble. “What My Bones Know” by Stephanie Foo. I will say, I bought the book for the pretty cover this time (though not my first time). I didn’t read the back until I got into the car, after I had already purchased it. This entire book is a memoir on healing from complex trauma. Go figure.
My therapist says that when you are healing and open, you become magnetic. Things become attracted to you based on that energy… your energy. So far this is the second book that has added itself to my life in the last couple of weeks.
I will preface by saying, I am really stressed about the state of this Country right now. I know this, I feel it every day, I see it in every source of entertainment. It is constant noise in the background of our days. That collective worry is it’s own trigger. There are times it makes me feel so small that I feel out of control. I don’t even know what from at this point.
It’s like my body picks up on something my mind can’t pin down. Then suddenly I’m back in that place of bracing, waiting for impact. “Think Again” reminded me there is beauty in disagreeing. In pausing long enough to question the narrative that feels so loud and dominating. Also that times, it’s not about find the answers. It’s about staying curious instead of spiraling. Curiosity feels safer than panic does, and that is how I rewrite that script.
✨ Enjoy today’s vibes ✨
What My Bones Are Still Learning.
Finding and starting Stephanie Foo’s book has started to resurface a lot of deep level sh*t. I am not that far into it yet, because even just starting it got me choked up. *red flag #1*. Not in a bad way though, to my point earlier. I am in a different part of my life. I have changed as a woman 30 times over in the last 9 years.
That’s the difference in picking up a book like this today versus years ago. Back then, I know I would have closed it the second it hit a nerve…I did that with the book “Your Body Keeps The Score”. Closed it the second it got real.. which was quickly.
Now, I can sit with the lump in my throat and keep reading. Not because it doesn’t hurt, but because I trust myself more with that hurt. And I KNOW I am safe. Even when triggered. (Thank you my love).
Nine years ago, I was still trying to survive, still bracing for the next blow, still mistaking safety for danger. Now, I can notice the trigger without letting it take me all the way under. I can see it for what it is: a reminder, not a prophecy. That’s growth I don’t always give myself credit for. (As I choke up just loving the memory of her, allowing her to sit with me now. Giving myself the hug I needed back then).
That’s also why “What My Bones Know” is hitting differently for me now. Foo writes from inside those fractures. From the version of herself who was still holding her breath and waiting for the world to feel safe. Reading her words, I find myself sitting with my own past versions.
The girl who was surviving
The woman who thought she had to hold it all together
The mother who carried so much guilt. (that’s a hard one to sit with still)
The one who couldn’t tell the difference between love and danger.
They all still live inside me. The difference is, now I can hold them with compassion instead of shame.
Running helps me do that. Movement reminds me I’m not stuck in those old loops anymore.
I can literally run them out of my body, mile by mile, breath by breath. Therapy helps me do it too. Sitting with Rene, I can finally give words to the things that once felt unspeakable. And curiosity gives me enough space to ask why am I feeling this? instead of drowning in it.
None of these erase the past versions of me. But they give me a way to honor her. To honor all of them, without letting them run the show anymore. That feels like the quietest kind of strength. It feels powerful. It is in moments like today’s writing that I feel the space between where I started my healing journey. And the woman who is carrying those scars, walking forward, head held high. And every day I choose to show up for myself – in any capacity – is another day I keep adding to that distance. The only thing I am competing with ever again is my last mile.
I feel like this post was for me. I needed the channel and the space to write my thoughts out. To sit with myself for the last few hours and honor whatever it is, that is surfacing.
Notes from Today.
